


We Can't Rewind

by BookshelfPassageway



Category: The Property of Hate
Genre: Gen, Prequel, but i don't care i'm enjoying writing it so far, even though YES the concept is a dog gamn fandom meme except now i love this tall ginger puppy oops, probably gonna get debunked by canon anywhere between 2 weeks/3 years from now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-04-03 18:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookshelfPassageway/pseuds/BookshelfPassageway
Summary: Once upon a time, the world was ending, and a man who could not prevent it alone sought help from one of the few people he had trusted long ago.But the archetype of a Hero is not so easily filled...





	1. Chapter 1

The Radio Host had fallen asleep in his chair again.

To be entirely fair, he spent about as much of his time here as he did at home, and the furnishings were at about the same level of comfort here as there. The booth was maybe a bit smaller than his usual lodgings, but there were more records fit into it, along with various hidden snack foods and less rodents to get into them. He had quite a good setup at home, of course, but these crate-stuffed shelves were, as they said, 'the good stuff.'

The Trespasser outside knew all of this, and hoped that his memory served true.

He didn't especially like to think of himself as a Trespasser, but, there you were. From an outsider's perspective, he really wasn't in a good place to argue that he wasn't, but he rationalized that it would be their problem, and not his. It wasn't his own fault, after all, that circumstances had deprived him of access to a working key, so of course the lock-picking that had ensues was purely circumstantial, nothing more than a tediously specific detail. The fact that it was night was another such detail that could call his presence into question, but Time and the Sun had a habit of doing whatever they pleased, regardless of their suitability for perfectly entitled visitors. Here, especially, they played by their own rules about that sort of thing, and there was nobody he could talk to about that to try and argue the point. Besides, he supposed, the night actually was a benefit, helping him avoid the inevitable multitude of odd looks and very inconvenient questions. In the long run, it was better for everyone he got put in such a bad light, and though he was willing to acknowledge that it was so, he still felt the need to justify himself.

The Trespasser, to his relief, found the cluttered studio exactly as he remembered it. Small, battered, and, well, cluttered. But there was a kind of warmth here, too, somewhere in between the bright colors of record sleeves and ash-stained carpet. He stood there, staring and taking it all in for a minute or so. It had occurred to him that although it was a familiar space, he was seeing it much differently than he had once done. The disorder of the place had it's own personality, this unremarkable room was a home, and for just a moment he could even tell himself that it was breathing.

A soft snuffle broke him out of his reverie. The breathing, it seemed, was very real, and coming from the chair in the muddle of the room. He circled around to the side of it, looking down onto it's occupant, and continued to find surprise in finding exactly what he'd been expecting should be there. He wasn't sure why that would elicit a feeling of surprise, but strange emotions like that had become much more common for him recently, the overwhelming feeling of remembering a vivid and long-forgotten dream.

This sight from another lifetime, was, of course, completely ordinary to anyone else in the world. The Radio Host lay sprawled out low in the rickety swivel-seat, bent in the kind of way which only he and any species of cat might find comfortable. One un-laced sneaker propped up on his desk, where a turntable slowly revolved, the needle now at the end of its roundabout journey and putting out only the gentlest crackle as it found new dust. The other was lost somewhere in with the chair’s wheels. The man's hands were folded over his thin torso, an unlit but well-handled cigarette held in one of them. Just above these, a medallion glinted back the red power light of the record player. His neck bent forwards at an angle which should pain him in the morning, pressing his chin into his chest and making his thick-framed glasses in danger of sliding off the end of his nose, where a few locks of wavy ginger hair drifted back and forth from his breath. To the Trespasser, it was too ordinary. Too real.

Oh, there he was going again…

A white-gloved hand reached out and turned off the record player. The light went out with a heavy 'clunk', and the needle was deftly plucked up and set back on its cradle.

"Ah, I say…" Muttered the Trespasser, with all the awkwardness of attempting to start a serious conversation, combined with that of politely attempting to wake someone up.

The Radio Host stirred, his consciousness dragged back into the present not only by the change in noise from the record, but also from the change in light. He moved his head a fraction upwards, and then reached (or, perhaps, flopped) one arm in front of his eyes in a bid to tone down the intrusive flickery brightness. Had he left the television on again? He gave a low grumble as he tried to organize the scatter of his mind.

"Good evening, dearest cousin," continued the Trespasser, much more comfortably now he could consider the man to be awake, though the oddly muzzy tone of his voice now had a level of urgency in it. "I need your help."

The Radio Host froze, his expression half-obscured by the glare of light now reflecting off his glasses. He hastily scrambled his limbs into some kind of 'upright' form within the chair, brushing the hair out of his eyes and gripping the arms of his seat. He tried to talk, but the dozen or so false starts did not even make their way into his throat before falling away. Finally, with a breath that only barely qualified as 'speech', something made it's way into the silence. "Ge-…?"

"Will you help me?" Interrupted the Trespasser. He flexed his gloved fingers as they rested on the crook of his bamboo cane.

This address allowed the Radio Host to finally choose one of the conclusions that had been shaken loose in his brain. "I'm still dreamin'…" He murmured, letting himself fall back into his seat and running his fingers through his hair. He gave a long, drawn-out sigh as his shoulders relaxed, putting his head now fully into his hands. When he looked back up, it was with a sad sort of smile. "TV head's a new one, though. Heh. Creepy. But… It kinda suits ya, cuz."

"Ah, thank you, I think," said the Trespasser, "but, of course, that is all entirely besides the point, and dreams should not be taken so lightly with where we plan to go." He picked up the cane, and skimmed one hand along it to grip the other end. Nothing seemed to attach the gloved hand to the forearm of the suit. The Radio Host noticed this, and was unnerved. More unnerved than the head? That was still to see… "Haven't you ever wanted to be a Hero?"

"Plenty enough as anybody else might." The Radio Host sat up again and rubbed his eyes. He felt awfully tired, for a dreamer. "What'cha got? An audition?"

"Something like that…" Said the tv man, delicately. "Please, I can't do it myself, and, well, I don't know who else to ask…" He worried the ends of the cane a little harder, and the screen kept angling itself to points in the room which were not the man in the chair.

"'S that a fact?" The Radio Host tapped his fingers on his knees, and, deciding there wasn't much point staying put, pushed out of the chair with all the grace of a baby giraffe, and, as he found himself with a decent view of the top of a straw boater, certain other commonalities. It was nice to see his subconscious still held on to that difference in the height between them, though it'd been such a long time since they'd met in person.

The TV's antennas flicked upwards as the screen turned to his face, and at their full length they actually went up past the Radio Host's head.

"Aw come on, rabbit-ears," said he, "that's cheatin'!"

One of the long wires crinkled, and so did the color bar on the bottom of the screen. "That is even further besides the point, which, at this moment, is yes, or no?" The Trespasser looked around the room again. This story wasn't his… He didn't belong here… Paranoia, or perhaps some instinct, flooded his senses with the need to leave the studio as soon as possible.

"What?"

"Will you come with me? Help me?"

"Y'aint usually this persistent when you turn up…" Mused the Radio Host, stretching out his back and discovering a crick in his neck, as he scanned the room for whatever sorts of things he would need to pack. "Then again…" He already had most of what he would have wanted to take already on him, in some cases, literally. He did grab a ring of keys, however, from a drawer by his desk. "You've usually got your head screwed on, though not quite so pretty. Yeah, sure, why not, I'll help ya."

The Trespasser gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you," he said, "for agreeing, at any rate. Now, grab your jacket and lace your shoes, we have to leave right now, and it's going to be a long journey."

"Got it," said the Radio Host, tugging on a green jacket and leaving his sneakers untouched. He paused, flapping the zippered edges of the hoodie with his pocketed hands. "And where is it you're plannin on taking me?"

"I'll explain on the way." The TV Man moved himself to the door and threw it open, gesturing for his cousin to go first through. The man sighed, and did so. "Do you recall much of Alice in Wonderland?"

"Uh…" The Radio Host tipped his head back to recall, and the bamboo cane shot out to nudge him so that his path no longer connected with a trash can on the street. "'bout as much as anyone whose ever read it, I'd reckon. Why?

"Just keep it in mind, cousin." The TV man gave a hesitant silence, and then corrected himself. "Hero. You will probably find the memory of that story more use to you than any other experience, at least here, to compare with."

The streets they walked down were dark, and the pavement slick with recent rain was an impressionistic mirror of the world above. The TV Man kept on ahead, legs moving as quickly as his air of control permitted as he wound his way with no apparent rhyme nor reason through the town. Even the Radio Host, the newly-recruited Hero, realized he no longer know where he was now.

"I just ask…" Continued he, "because I've never dreamed anythin like it before and uh-…" He trailed off delicately. "Seein as how you uh…? With you're being dead, and all…"

"I'm sure you haven't," answered the TV man, opening the door to some abandoned brick shopfront, "because it really is me, and I really do need your help."

"You ain't how I remember ya."

"That's why I'm real."

"The problem with that is you're still dead."

"Which is why I'm like this." The TV Man gestured to himself, and sounded as though this was conclusive logic to the whole argument. "Really now, it's not even the point… You'll see it all make sense as soon as we get there."

"Uh-huh." The Hero's eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight coming through the boarded window. The place wasn't what he had expected at all. The walls were rimmed with nothing but doors, and a corridor lead further into the back than he would have thought the place had space for, and it divided into two more at its end. It had an odd feeling to it, abandoned, of course, but untouched by the usual signs of decay. He knew he had never been to this part of town before.

Then again, if it were only a dream, why should he?

"And uh, how 'bout me…?" Asked the Hero.

The question took the TV Man by surprise. "How do you mean?" He watched his recruit scratch the back of his neck as he desperately called to mind every possible electrical or gas appliance that he could have forgotten to turn off, and then realized what he meant. "OH! No, no no no no, not-… It's not like that at all, no," he quickly put his hands up, batting away at the very idea, "if anything, ah, actually-…" The Hero kept his eyes on him as he then trailed off and shook his head. "It will make more sense when you see it," he explained, and slipped down the corridor at the back. His cousin followed, and around the corners at the end of the hallway lead even more doors, like a hotel. Different colored lights filtered through the gaps in the worn wood, and arcane symbols were engraved on curiously shiny gold plaques on the tops of the frames.

"Ah! Here we are…" He fished something out of his suit-jacket as he stopped in front of one of the doors, (an infinity sign, perhaps?) and fitted it to the lock. He turned back to his new Hero, and the latter noticed that the line of colors at the base of the screen turned up in a way not unlike a smile. The taller man still looked worried. "Relax…" Reassured the dapper television. "I'm not here to escort you up to the pearly gates, if that's what you had in mind. You know that was never my style."

And with that, he threw the door open onto a blaze of color and light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good lord Dial's accent is a heck of a time to figure out how to write. Also, it's really WEIRD not actually calling him Dial...
> 
> I'm not 100% on this title right now, it's one of three bouncing around my head and they all came from the same place because I'm awful that way. To be fair, though, that song is a real bop. 
> 
> I'm on a roll with writing this at an even sort of pace, not sure what that'll translate to in terms of "when this updates" yet, but hopefully a pattern shall soon reveal itself! I got a good feeling about this one, I've got a good system and the BEST fandom, which should be excellent writerly supports!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Hello!
> 
> Anyway, I actually had quite a good chunk of this written down already, and just needing of transcribing/editing. I have some more still on paper, I'll try and work on that in a soonish fashion. In the meantime... Here's a particularly long chapter, as an apology, and a lot of familial bickering that was fun to write. I don't want to follow the comic too closely, but, well, here we are. I suppose it makes sense, if he's trying to find the Hero for the same story over and over again.

The Hero had to put his hand up again from yet another drastic change in light. Through the door lay out a wide landscape, rolling with hills dressed in the most surreal colors he'd ever seen grass and trees come in. In the distance, a lake sparkled, though from what light source or direction he could not quite tell. Something beneath his feet was much harder than what the grass looked to be, and much warmer than the floorboards of the place he'd previously been in. He looked down, and dragged one of his sneakers over a butter-yellow pavement. He gave a short bark of a laugh. "Hey now, you gettin your fairy-tales mixed up? This place is lookin' more like Oz than Wonderland."

"You'll find, cousin, the road you're thinking of was meant to be made of brick, and not a smooth pave. This is-…" The TV Man gestured out, waving a bit as though to call the right words to himself. "You'll find a lot of stories here. Some, not in the way you expect."

The readhead's eyes got lost in the scenery again, and he let a low whistle pass through his lips. His guide brushed past him, snapping him out of it, and it seemed he did not have much else to do but to follow. "Whatever you say, cuz." He shrugged. "You're the one talkin' for my mind. Doesn't hurt to tag along, see where I end up, I don't usually get anything like this, you know."

"You still believe you're dreaming?" The television tipped back over the shoulder of the suit. It really wasn't the kind of object that the Hero had ever thought of as a face, but nonetheless it made an eerily good job of when put to the test. With a fascination and a revulsion alike, he noticed some kind of colored fluid leaking from the bottom of the screen, like an electric candy, or technicolor drool.

"Well, yeah." Said Hero, trying not to stare too strangely. "What else 'm I supposed to be, if I ain't dead, either?"

His guide simply gave a thoughtful hum, and continued walking, leaving his Hero without answers.

The former Radio-Host bounded to catch up in no more than two strides. "So where we goin', rabbit-ears?"

"First off, please, do NOT call me that. Second, we're going to pick up a few supplies, and tell someone 'I told you so'."

Hero put his hands up defensively. He noticed a thread sticking loose in one of his red fingerless gloves, and as soon as RGB moved on again, he reached down and snapped it from the garment with his teeth. "Alright, alright, didn't think you'd be that self-conscious about em. They actually look pretty good on you, G-…"

_Thwap!_

The bamboo cane, quick as thinking, whipped out in front of Hero's path, catching him high in the chest. His cousin was now looking at him with what appeared to be intensity. The jaunty curve of colors at the bottom of his screen had flattened into a line so low you could barely see it, although the color was still dribbling out of the base. Was there a crack of loose seal in the glass down there? He honestly couldn't tell.

"Wh-…" He started, but the cane pressed higher now, gently nudging his chin up to close his mouth. It didn't hurt, but the gesture was a surprising one. Nevertheless, the message had come through quite clearly.

The cane's owner now had his hand splayed on his downturned screen, resting it on the fingertips. "Ah, damn… I've been here so long I hadn't thought about-…" He trailed off, "you must understand, names have a great deal of power, here. I stopped using the one you once knew me by a long time ago."

His Hero gave him a puzzled look. "I thought you liked your name, said it was a good one for actors."

"Oh, I do! Er, well, did. Or…" RGB tried to find the words, and meanwhile absently brushed something unseen off the front of his suit. "As you've been so observant to notice, I'm not quite-… The same _Me_ that I used to be. I am actually much more myself, now, but with that comes ah-… Some of my old things didn't quite fit me anymore, including my name. Of course, I was fortunate enough that I was able to keep my old style." With that, he grinned and flicked up the corners of his collar.

Hero looked at him for a minute. "Y'still look like a carny," he said.

"Oh hah hah, it's vaudeville."

"So what do-…"

"RGB." He interrupted. "Heh. Would have perhaps helped to have mentioned that earlier, eh?"

"Yeah." Hero remained silent for a minute.

The silence continued. Hero bit his lip, then took a breath.

"No." Said RGB, flatly.

"Aw, come on! I had a good one!"

"I'm sure you did, which is why I'll be very annoyed I hadn't thought of it myself."

"Never could stand to be outpunned, could ya?"

"No."

"Well, I ain't gonna tell you then, so it'll drive ya crazy."

"Thank you." RGB paused, stopping so suddenly in his tracked that his cousin nearly ran into him again. "And ah, while we're on that subject…" He said, carefully. "While we're here, just to be safe, you shouldn't use your old one either."

"My what?"

"Your name, man."

"What's wrong with-…?"

"Hsssh!" RGB grabbed him by the arms. "I just told you, names are very, very powerful here. If you keep yours, it might cause-… Problems. Because I brought you in from outside it-… You're The Hero, here, just remember that, alright?"

"Gee," Hero let out a puff of air and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm honored, but I gotta say, sounds like a pretty big title, 'specially if names are as important as you say they are."

"Isn't that what you agreed to when you came with me?"

Hero remembered it _had_ come up, back at the studio. It was funny how long ago it felt like despite the fact that not even a half hour had had a chance to pass. He supposed you could say it was a whole world away. "I guess I did. I just didn't think you meant it so seriously."

"It's not-… Well, it is very serious, but that doesn't mean it wont be fine. After all, we're all actors here, you should know how this works."

"So I'm just in the _part_ of the Hero."

"Precisely. You were the one who said fairy tales, after all. We just have to put you through the story, and at the curtain call, everything's fine again."

"Sounds simple enough."

"Nothing simpler."

The two carried on the next stretch in silence. RGB didn't feel like explaining anything else at the moment, and the Hero was much too fixed on getting himself into the mindset for what he was supposed to be now. He imagined it was mostly being brave, charming, good at things… He hoped the last part wouldn't be too important for him to really know. Then, there was doing good things. Good tended to vary between stories, but the image he couldn't shake was rescuing and monster-slaying. Hopefully there wouldn't be too much of that either, but RGB had told him it would be simple, so perhaps not.

They came to the foot of some kind of staircase, though the big flat platforms that made it up did not seem to be attached to anything. RGB took to them without a second thought or any kind of concern for the impossible architechture. _Alright_ , thought Hero as he looked at the swirling mist of cloud that the stairs led into, _brave. Got it_. He hopped up after his cousin. Far up and up, so that he nearly missed it at first, sat what looked like half a castle. "There wouldn't be dragons or anything in there, would there?"

"Probably not." Said RGB. "It's not the busy part of the day."

The Hero's joking grin flickered, and the castle looked a little bigger and darker now.

"It's quite safe." Reassured RGB, "So long as you can pay your receipt." He landed lightly on the top step, and pressed on the heavy wooden door, admitting them both with the distant ringing of a bell somewhere inside.

* * *

 

Somehow, Hero still found himself to be astonished by the amount of color in the place, which was quite the feat given the fact that the outside had been so vibrant to begin with.

He supposed the reason behind this was because it was largely green. Which was to say, it a was very deep green compared to the bright daylight outside, and it was larger than expected. The high walls of the inside were just as high as those without, maybe even bigger. He'd expected a narrow hallway, maybe carpeted, and instead found himself standing on a high ledge above what looked like some kind of great, glass library. He turned his head to try to take more of it in, and then accidentally ran his head into the great antlers of some sort of animal skull. RGB reached past him to rest his cane in the crook of the dead beast's horns, while Hero caught himself on an endtable, and watched his guide trailing away down a narrow flight of steps that trailed the outer wall. He shed his jacket and folded it on the endtable, following after him. Though the place was just slightly on the warm side, having the jacket off didn't seem to make him feel all that different.

RGB was striding like he owned the place. Did he? It would be the least of this night's surprises, which included the question of whether or not it even _was_ still actually night, now that he thought about it. If it _were_ his house, though, he supposed that the high encircling wall would be filled with-… Something other than their current occupants, which he could now see were rows upon rows of bright glass bottles, like oversized test tubes, containing no two alike substances. Some holding such thin air as if to seem empty, others had such thick dark liquid that the glass was rendered opaque, and you could see your wrong reflection in it. Other shelves, down lower, contained a bizarre range of artifacts, he couldn't quite make them out just yet. It smelled like an art studio, a spice pantry, and a little like your grandmothers. There was something vivid and indistinct about the whole room, a quality which didn't seem to apply to the outlines of himself and RGB.

The guide stopped in front of a simple wooden counter, and gave a flourishing tap to the little silver service-bell that rested there. So, it seemed the castle was a shop. An apothecary of some kind, maybe? The comment about paying came back to Hero, and the whole thing felt like it made a lot more sense now. Besides, his cousin was a skilled man at dragging people into awful messes over their heads, but he was rather good at getting out of said scrapes too. It could be dangerous, but… At the same time, not _really_. Things usually worked out too well for that.

"Oh, Madras?" Called out RGB, leaning his arms on the counter. It could've been a slightly more dramatic lean, if the counter had not been taller than his elbows, but there was a very specific smugness about the gesture.

"I heard you the first time." A silky female voice returned clearly from somewhere up and behind a large shelf. "Give me a moment, you know you're hardly my only customer."

"Ah, but I am your best!" RGB tilted towards where the voice had come from to respond.

"Liar."

"I _do_ my best." He tipped his hat, presumably towards the other speaker.

During this exchange, Hero had been unable to locate where the voice had come from just by turning his head, so he had wandered off to look around the lower level. It was much like the upper, in that there were more skulls on the walls, and a few lone bookcases full of more glassware lined the walls. He nearly let himself drop into a plush red armchair as he fished in his pockets for matches, when with a slight prickling feeling, he realized the chair was _looking_ at him. With a smooth twirl, he turned the movement into an exaggerated wave of greeting. "Hey there." He addressed it, eyes flicking back and forth between the chairs' eyes, one on each armrest. "Hell of a mornin, huh?"

The chair blinked slowly at him, and did not respond in any other way whatsoever. He took a lungful of air to try and keep up some small talk, or perhaps direct the chair to where RGB was waiting, when a brush of wind distracted him. A high gold ladder skimmed past behind him, rolling with near perfect silence across the shelves. A pink and petite figure slid down the rungs and landed with a similar lack of sound, packing a few items into a parcel and striding right past Hero, and right past RGB, ignoring both of them as she rounded on the figure following her.

The mass of hats, scarves, and jingly trinkets trailing behind may have possibly been some form of rodent, or maybe a bird. Wide eyes darted beneath the depths of fluff and fabric, not staying on any one thing for any long amount of time. It traipsed up to the counter and bobbed there.

"The usual, bulk daydreams, nostalgia…" Said the voice from earlier, the lady behind the counter. "And your usual?"

The creature bowed over the top of the desk, trinkets jingling, and the lady's curling fingers reached out into the tufts of feathers. With a sharp pull and short squeak from the client, she pulled away holding a mass of what seemed like cotton candy (or, 'candyfloss', according to his fancy cousin). She held it up to the light, narrowing what Hero realized was just one eye as she gauged the quality, and then nodded. "Yes, that should about do for today. Though I think-…" She yanked one more feather, leaving the bird to wobble, but not cry out this time. "Yes, that's it. Come again soon." She pushed the package forward, and waved her handful of feathers at her customer. It gave a warm trill in reply, package vanishing inside of the fluff, and picked its way back up the stairs and out.

Hero bid the chair a parting nod and flashed his fingers in a peace sign, and strode over to the main counter.

"There." Said the lady, stashing the feathers in a drawer before turning her oozy gaze on RGB, who had resumed his counter-lean. "What is it you're after today?"

"Oh, you know." Said RGB, tugging on his gloves. "Supplies. Full Hero's Journey set."  
  
The single eye narrowed at RGB, and the lady, Madras, spoke at a level tone. "Are you really going to try that again?" She asked.

"Oh, no no," said RGB, "not myself, no, I suppose I should have realized that wouldn't work…" His voice trailed so low near the end you could hear the static in it. Then, he turned around, spotted his cousin, and, grinning like a parabola, yanked him front and center before the counter. "Madras, meet the _new_ Hero."

Hero, balanced somewhere between the heels of his sneakers and his cousin's hands on his back, felt a little confused, but stuck his hand out anyway.

The cyclops was sizing him up, now. He could sense there was probably more to that oozing eye than just… _Seeing_ things, things as they visually seemed to be. She was looking at him closer than what most people would call comfortable, practically right through him. She reached out, and he felt her fingernails on his chin and cheekbones as she began to angle his face this way and that. "My my, RGB," she said, "what _have_ you gotten yourself into this time?"

"He's not for you, Madras, kindly let him go."

With one last, long look, Madras obliged, setting him momentarily off-balance again. "Y'know," said Hero, "if you really wanted an eyeful, you should've seen this one back in the day," he jerked his thumb back at RGB, though not turning to look, "he's the one that got all the pretty-boy genes. Me, well, I got the better set of pipes."

"Really now?" Said Madras, leaning her elbows on the counter, grinning at RGB as though 'pretty-boy' wasn't something he was going to live down for some time.

"Hah, yes, you could say I always had a real face for television." The guide angled his head up a few degrees, flicking the brim of his hat. Madras rolled her eye. Checkmate.

"So, I take it you two were… related?"

"Yes, ah-… Cousins."

"Not quite first'ns."

"And a little removed."

"And from different parts of the planet."

"But he's-… Much like me. He can put on almost as good a show as I can."

"Hah! Good one. Always the comedian."

Madras stopped her ladder in front of a glittering display of crystals. "And you think this will work because…?"

RGB crossed his arms. "I know why it didn't work for me, dear, dear Hero here doesn't have the same problem.

As it turned out, the crystals were actually more bottles of strange liquid, though these were thicker and more angular than the test tubes.

"It's still a big gamble, even for you."

"His story will sort itself out on the trip."

Hero, meanwhile, watched and listened with as intense an interest as he was able to keep a hold on. There were two problems, he saw, that were quickly becoming apparent here. One, was that he had no idea what these two were talking about, and two, he probably couldn't get a word in edgewise to ask. He could easily shout down RGB, but Madras didn't seem the type of person you did that to. Plus, even if he did, he wouldn't even know where to begin.

There was that far-off hope he was still dreaming, but somehow it didn't feel important. He wondered if he'd be disappointed or not if he were suddenly woken up. There was something maddeningly mysterious going on here, and there was an odd comfort about seeing his deceased relative here in the-… Well, not here in the flesh. Here in the clothes, more like, which was much like he'd been back then, too. Still as much of a whimsical shortstack made of puns as ever. He liked the idea that the old boy had been given another shot at things, after, well… The accident.

Madras packed her box from around the shop. Hero noticed her heels didn't seem to sink into the carpet, though he felt his own sneakers squishing down into it. RGB made comments on things he didn't want, things she'd forgotten, and insinuated she was probably going to overcharge and shortchange him. The parcel finally made its way back to the counter, neatly tied in beige paper and coarse sting. Somehow, in this place, even the beige was vivid. "What that comes to-…" She typed in her register, "will probably hurt you," she said, pulling out a thin rubber tube from behind the counter, "but, I suppose, you are a loyal visitor, and you have what might be a Protagonist in your company, so I'll let you off with a discount."

RGB tipped his hat. "You're too kind, Madras."

"The other half is going on your tab. I prefer my customers alive and able to return, after all." She handed him the receipt.

If it were possible for an appliance to go pale, RGB would have. But, it seemed to check out, because with a resigned sigh he turned his back to lean on the counter. Madras screwed the hose into an unseen port on the base of his screen, and what looked like multicolored neon began to flow through it. With some surprise, Hero realized the same colors were the ones that kept dribbling out of the screen. He didn't like the dribbling, but-… Was it something important? He'd taken apart TVs before, but they'd never been made out of rainbows.

"Uh, hang on, I uh, got some spare change…" He began to rifle through his pockets. Old gum. Paperclip. Keys. Battered cigarette box with about four left in it… Quarters and battered five and ten bills.The juice seemed like a pretty crazy way to pay, and he was used to having to deal with his cousin's perpetual conviction that nothing but a winning smile and a few well-woven words was ever needed for any kind of bill. Hero-… Well, he supposed he lived up to his title in the number of times he'd had to bail that brit out of trouble.

"Keep hold of that," said RGB, "there'll be better places for it later. Madras deals in-… Slightly less abstract concepts than dollars."

"He's right," said Madras, "but don't worry about him. It doesn't hurt-…"

"Not right now, anyway,"

"…And he's always making too much of the stuff. He bounces back quickly."

"Although, ahem, it is pertinent to remind that I still need MOST of it in order to do so."

"Hush, you're done now." Madras detached the tube, and fetched a set of gleaming color jars from below the table. RGB seemed like himself, though his smile had grown thinner, and, as he stood, there was something dazed about his movements. He leaned on the cane a lot harder than he'd done before, rubbing the side of the screen (what that did was anyone's guess, though the gesture was still strikingly human).

The door jingled on the upper level, and Madras moved the jars to one side of the table. "Like I said, I do have other customers," she went to a nearby shelf, and pulled out something between an optometrist's kit and a moonshine still, and began to pour the colors into the large funnel at the top. "Come again soon, and don't waste the luck you had me pack, because you're going to need it."

Hero felt her eye on his back as he left again, and he barely noticed the origami dragon who passed them on the way out.

RGB, he saw when they stepped back into the daylight, was still a little out of it. His movements were less prim than usual, and he was still making heavy use of the cane rather than twirling it around. It held up well, for old, thin bamboo. He also realized that the suit was now a different color. Well, no, it was the same color, but less saturated.

"You alright?" Asked Hero, glancing over, skipping every other step with his long strides.

"I am, as always, half right, half left. As for my wellbeing, I'm just a bit dizzy, that's all. She was right in that it will clear up in a minute or two." Indeed, as they descended, he seemed to slowly pick back up a shade of jauntiness.

"What was that stuff, anyhow?" Asked Hero.

"You won't like it."

"Cause, it sure looks to me like you're droolin' all over the place." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Very posh."

"That's not-…! Really, you would not like it if I told you."

"Come oOoOnnnn…"

"I'm watching out for your own good."

"Tell me."

"No."

"Please?"

"D-…Rrgh. It it really that import-…"

"Preetty please?"

RGB sighed, and looked up to the sky as though to roll his eyes at it. He did a pretty good job, too, for no eyes. "It's a vital fluid," he said, "Raw emotion. Very valuable. Not, under usual circumstances, easy to obtain."

Hero thought about this. "So it's like, uh-…"

"Yes?"

He swallowed. "This stuff keep you alive? Or, well, _uh_ …"

"Definitions of 'life' aside, yes."

"Oh. So like-…? When you say _vital fluid_ , you don’t mean-..." He paled, hoping RGB would explain that it was, actually, _not_ that _at all_.

"I _did_ try to tell you. I honestly tried."

The two cousins stood there on the last step, Hero watching a particularly viscous drop of purple with a new kind of quiet horror, mouth hanging open and eyes wide. He wobbled, much like RGB had been doing not too long before, and, for Hero, the whole world spun to dark.

RGB sighed. The other reason he hadn't wanted to tell him, was that he really didn't want to have to carry him all the way to the ferry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not worry citizens, tis not the end! there is still more that will happen here. Dial's just a lil bit shook, as i imagine one can be when you realize your undead cousin is bleeding out their face 100% of the time, and it makes for a good scene/location cut.


End file.
